What is a brand film?
A brand film is a piece of cinema with a company behind it. It is usually longer than a commercial, anywhere from ninety seconds to a short documentary, and it is not built around a product shot or a price. Instead it tells a story that the brand wants to be associated with: a founder, a craft, a community, a belief. The product may appear, but it is a character rather than the point.
The form grew out of two things: the collapse of the thirty-second spot as the only place a brand could speak, and the rise of platforms where people choose what to watch. On YouTube, on a brand's own site, on a screen in a flagship store, a film has to earn its audience. A brand film is what a brand makes when it wants to be worth the time.
Why it matters
Why brand films matter
People do not remember claims; they remember stories. A brand film gives a company a story that can be told once, well, and then used for years: in the sales deck, at the all-hands, on the homepage, in the press kit. It also does a job advertising cannot, which is to show the culture behind the product. A luxury house can list its materials in an ad, but only a film can make you feel the workshop.
Done badly, a brand film is an expensive vanity piece that nobody outside the marketing department ever watches. Done well, it becomes the thing people send each other, and the asset every other campaign borrows from.
In practice
How brand films work in practice
- 01
A brand film starts with a question the brand is willing to answer honestly: why do we exist, who do we serve, what do we believe that our competitors do not. That answer becomes a treatment, which is a short written description of the film: its story, its look, its tone and its length. Once the treatment is agreed, the project runs like any film: casting or subject research, locations, a shoot, an edit, a grade, a mix and a set of cutdowns for each place it will live.
- 02
The crew is small and senior. A director who can hold a story, a cinematographer who can light a real place, a producer who can get access, an editor who can find the film in the footage. The budget depends less on length than on access: a day in a studio is one thing, a week following a founder across three cities is another.
At RIOT
Brand films at RIOT
Brand films are the heart of what we make. For Tiffany & Co. we made "Where Light Meets Rebellion," The Medusa film and the Schlumberger film, pieces about the house's craft and history rather than any one piece of jewelry. For the Washington Commanders we made the 2022 rebrand film that introduced the new identity. For IWC Schaffhausen we made the film for its New York flagship, for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce the brand spot "For the Pursuit," and for News Corp "The Future, In Focus." Each one had to be watched by people who did not have to watch it.
Watch out
What people get wrong about brand films
The most common mistake is making a long commercial and calling it a film. If every scene exists to show the product, people feel the sell and leave. The second is the opposite: a beautiful film with no brand in it, so moving that nobody remembers who made it. The craft is holding both, a real story and a clear reason the brand is the one telling it.
The third mistake is finishing the film and forgetting the release. A brand film needs a premiere, a cutdown plan and a home on the brand's own channels, or it becomes a link in an email that three people open.
